My iPhone nightmare. A $700 paperweight?

[endlsdremr]

I cannot believe it is now 6:30 am Saturday morning and I am still waiting to have an iPhone that works! I am so pissed off!

I waited in line from 9 pm on Thursday to 6 pm on Friday to get into the AT&T store. The rep who took care of me had technical difficulties and it took me 30 min. to get out of the store (while people came and left in 5 min). The lady at the store ran my credit 3 times and did not finish my application process (is what customer service later said).

Then I race home to sync my iPhone and iTunes keeps looping and will not activate my phone! The store said it was an apple technical problem because it kept looping me through the activation process without giving me a number (the store said). And that I was having problems because I was trying to switch over my old number... I did not even attempt to switch my old number! I did not give it to anyone, did not enter it in to iTunes. Nothing...

Then the apple technical support said that the AT&T guys did not input every code/ serial number and it was AT&T's fault and just wait until I get an email confirmation.

9 hours later... I received the blessed email and it said I needed to call AT&T. So I read the guy a bunch of numbers off of my box, swear to kill my first born in act of allegiance to AT&T, and now the guy says, "This issue will be resolved as soon as you go to your AT&T store." WHAT?! I have to go back to the place that this nightmare started?! He said that there is now a new problem, that there is something wrong with the SIM card number. The only way to resolve it, of course, is to go back to the purchasing store. They do not open for another 3 1/2 hours, and do you think it is going to be an in and out process? I think not.

Am I a schmuck? Do I have "young, single female, SCHMUCK that you can take advantage of" written across my forehead?


Oh, I am so pissed.. I have a phone i can only make 'emergency' calls on?!
People, please shoot me a word of encouragement.
Tell me the iPhone is worth the AT&T hassle.
Puh-LEASE! Give me hope, a light at the (unforeseeable) end of the tunnel.
Or, misery loves company... let me know your horror stories...

[bobcan]

Being from Canada I can only hope when available to us we have better Luck than this... I am looking Forward to the arrival of this device... Hoping it is actually worth the wait and the $$$!!!

Be strong I assume that all will be well.. I am Eternally Optomistic and believe in the Goodness of Man!!

Hope it works out... Ciao_Bob

[killerrobot]

From reading the forums you're not the only one with problems--although the only one that has to return to AT&T.

Originally Posted by endlsdremr

Am I a schmuck? Do I have "young, single female, SCHMUCK that you can take advantage of" written across my forehead?

I was gonna say take a picture of your forehead with the camera on your iphone and post it, but I guess that can't really be done. I'd definitely call AT&T the scmucks here, not you.

Hope it all gets worked out ASAP, that you have no more problems and you can post a picture stat Good luck.

[endlsdremr]

Originally Posted by killerrobot

From reading the forums you're not the only one with problems--although the only one that has to return to AT&T.

Hope it all gets worked out ASAP, that you have no more problems and you can post a picture stat Good luck.

I read on the Apple Phone Show blog site that others are having problems too. So that makes me feel a little better.. But, i was originally 2nd in line, (ended up number 5- don't ask) this shouldn't have happened to me... I waited so long, you know. Just sucks.

I will post after i come home from the store and let you know what happens. Thanks for sending me some luck... with AT&T I will need it.

[sorry for whinging]

[arcanic]

Originally Posted by endlsdremr

I cannot believe it is now 6:30 am Saturday morning and I am still waiting to have an iPhone that works! I am so pissed off!

I waited in line from 9 pm on Thursday to 6 pm on Friday to get into the AT&T store. The rep who took care of me had technical difficulties and it took me 30 min. to get out of the store (while people came and left in 5 min). The lady at the store ran my credit 3 times and did not finish my application process (is what customer service later said).

Then I race home to sync my iPhone and iTunes keeps looping and will not activate my phone! The store said it was an apple technical problem because it kept looping me through the activation process without giving me a number (the store said). And that I was having problems because I was trying to switch over my old number... I did not even attempt to switch my old number! I did not give it to anyone, did not enter it in to iTunes. Nothing...

Then the apple technical support said that the AT&T guys did not input every code/ serial number and it was AT&T's fault and just wait until I get an email confirmation.

9 hours later... I received the blessed email and it said I needed to call AT&T. So I read the guy a bunch of numbers off of my box, swear to kill my first born in act of allegiance to AT&T, and now the guy says, "This issue will be resolved as soon as you go to your AT&T store." WHAT?! I have to go back to the place that this nightmare started?! He said that there is now a new problem, that there is something wrong with the SIM card number. The only way to resolve it, of course, is to go back to the purchasing store. They do not open for another 3 1/2 hours, and do you think it is going to be an in and out process? I think not.

Am I a schmuck? Do I have "young, single female, SCHMUCK that you can take advantage of" written across my forehead?


Oh, I am so pissed.. I have a phone i can only make 'emergency' calls on?!
People, please shoot me a word of encouragement.
Tell me the iPhone is worth the AT&T hassle.
Puh-LEASE! Give me hope, a light at the (unforeseeable) end of the tunnel.
Or, misery loves company... let me know your horror stories...

I was the first in line and the ONLY one who had major problems activating my account. They had to manually input me in the system some how. I got ported from Verizon this morning. Good luck and know that it's worth the wait...

Arc

[JoJoCal19]

WOW! I went to bed thinking I was the only person who waited an entire day for my phone only to not be able to activate it. Im going to my ATT store AGAIN today to see if I can get this resolved.

[Island Dog]

The iPhone really isn't the issue, it's the pathetic service from AT&T that's going to blow this thing. I'm getting ready to head out to the AT&T store now, and see what they can do.

[theNEOone]

same here....problems with ATT activation. i'm a current customer though. i think the problem is that i'm actually an old at&t wireless customer (before cingular bought them out) and there's some wierd issues here. either way, there should be no excuses......just get this thing working, damnit!


=|

[StrayRooster]

sorry about ur luck man. That sucks. I am a current ATT customer and my setup went flawless. ATT isn't going to "blow this thing" at all. You clearly had a hardware problem and are just trying to blame someone. The iTunes setup process was flawless for me.

[endlsdremr]

After going back to my AT&T store they took out the SIM card and gave me a new one.. (To those of you who will try this in the future... just make sure you inform them that the Apple guys told you this is what you need to do. It helps when you have the dude's name and 6 character id# you talked to.)

I am syncing as I type this! It works...

Shout out to Jesi - the AT&T store rep who helped me this morning! And apologies to the two AT&T reps I yelled at yesterday night from 7 pm to 9 pm.

[TurboPGT]

This is such a huge disaster. Terrible.

[gauchogolfer]

Originally Posted by TurboPGT

This is such a huge disaster. Terrible.

What are you on about? She got her problem resolved and now seems pretty content.

[mentalcase]

All these activation problems are all apples fault. Since they wanted to have everything done to a 't' this is why everyone is getting so mad. If apple would have allowed ATT to activate the phones in store there would be less problems. Granted there would be problems as there always are, but they would be more isolated then the ones created by itunes activation. Thanks apple for giving ATT a bad name.

[zioxide]

Originally Posted by mentalcase

Thanks apple for giving ATT a bad name.

AT&T had a good name before? wtf are you smoking?

[lsfjosh]

Originally Posted by mentalcase

All these activation problems are all apples fault. Since they wanted to have everything done to a 't' this is why everyone is getting so mad. If apple would have allowed ATT to activate the phones in store there would be less problems. Granted there would be problems as there always are, but they would be more isolated then the ones created by itunes activation. Thanks apple for giving ATT a bad name.

Um... I for one would not have wanted to wait even longer while people got their phones activated in the store. My activation went fine and I am sure a majority of activations went smoothly as well. You have to remember that not everyone who is happy with their iPhone is running to blog and post about it. They are out using it!

-JOSH-

[endlsdremr]

Originally Posted by lsfjosh

Um... I for one would not have wanted to wait even longer while people got their phones activated in the store. My activation went fine and I am sure a majority of activations went smoothly as well. You have to remember that not everyone who is happy with their iPhone is running to blog and post about it. They are out using it!

-JOSH-

Seriously, I think a lot more people had problems than you'd think. I heard that i was not the only one who waited 17 hours to activate. Yes, I am happy now... (i luv the iphone) but.. was totally pissed (and took it out on the AT&T reps- which made me feel like crap later). I agree that not everyone is out blogging about their iphones (the teens and preteens, whom got their mummies and daddies to buy them the phone, wouldn't know how to lift the toilet seat, let alone post a blog)

I think the blogs are coming though.. todayiniphone is a podcast that has been around for a good month or so, they get a lot of bloggers and podcasters on their show...

in my case, the thing that impressed me the most was Apple stepping up where AT&T lacked. they did all they could to help and told me what to do with AT&T, and it worked.

[aristobrat]

Originally Posted by mentalcase

If apple would have allowed ATT to activate the phones in store there would be less problems.

There's no way AT&T could have manually in-store activated the estimated 200,000 - 500,000 iPhones that were sold over the weekend.

The delay that would have created would have been way, way, way more of an issue for EVERY SINGLE PERSON that purchased a phone than the activation issues that happened to a subset of the people who bought them.